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We are very fortunate to live in this magnificent country, Australia. Far away from the troubles of older, more populous nations, we started with a very clean environment. Yet
the 2009 Clean-Up Australia Day Council statistics show that Australians are the second highest producers of waste, per person, in the world ! Our environment cannot remain clean, and our drinking water so pure, if we do not use our resources wisely.
Clean-Up Australia Day, is one of 365 days, where we can show how proud we are of our country, by bending our ego, and bending our back, to reduce, re-use, and recycle rubbish, in our neighbourhood
and community.
With the help of our wonderful Tuition Class students, and YBS members, and in conjunction with the Strathfield Council, the monastery has participated in the Clean-Up Australia Day activity since 1991. We have regularly fielded
up to 50 volunteers, on the first Sunday morning in March. They pick
up more than 30 bags of rubbish from the Homebush and Flemington areas. Why don't you help
in your community ?
Clean Up Our Climate
and Global Warming
Greenhouse or Global Warming is caused by the release of carbon
dioxide and other heat-trapping gases into the earth’s atmosphere. The gases act like a thick blanket, trapping the
sun's heat and causing the planet to warm up. These gases are created when we burn fossil fuels in power plants,
aeroplanes, and in our cars. It is also caused by the loss of trees, forests, and land clearing. This Warming is
changing weather patterns, causing glaciers to melt, rising seas, and more severe storms, droughts, & bushfires.
Average temperatures are expected to rise by the end of the century.
Australians are
the highest per capita producers of
Greenhouse gases in the world at 27.5 tonnes per person !
There are seven worthwhile actions students can do, to help reduce Global
Warming.
1. Educate your parents and others, about Global Warming. Explain how Global Warming is causing weather
changes, affecting Australia’s rainfall, and agricultural
production, and explain the ways everyone can reduce their carbon
footprint.
2. Save
energy ! Turn off your computer, TV, air-conditioning, and lights
and other appliances, when you are not using them. Buy products that
are the most energy and water efficient in (1) their manufacture,
(2) their use, and (3) their disposal and recycling.
3.
Suggest
to your parents (or strata) install a solar hot water heater if you
don’t have one already.
4. Is the weather too cold ? Rather than use a heater, put a jumper on, or go outside and do some exercises to warm up, preferably with your brother or sister ! Is the weather too hot ? Rather than using energy intensive air-conditioning, use a fan. Try planting trees near your house or unit. The shade of a tree can provide a 120 C cooling factor in the hot summer months !
5. Need to go somewhere ? Tell your parents you can walk, cycle, or take public transport.
6. Where appropriate, help
re-vegetate land-cleared areas to produce more oxygen, and absorb CO2.
Why not help re-vegetate your neighbourhood, preferably with some of Sydney's 2,000 indigenous plants ?
7.
Global warming is the result of too many humans using polluting
energy sources, polluting manufacturing processes, and land-clearing
for agricultural crops. As the former Premier of NSW, Bob Carr said
(ABC interview 10-Dec-09), “Some politicians think that
Australia’s population should be encouraged to rise to 35 million.
Where is the community discussion about this ? Where is the
Environmental Impact Statement for this ? Some people claim that the
net benefit of migrants is to stimulate the economy. - Tell that to
the city people stuck in traffic jams, and the school children who
have to breathe polluted air, because there are too many cars on the
road next to their school. There is not an infinite amount of water
available to Sydney. How will this large population survive ? We do
not have infinite agricultural resources in Australia. There needs
to be population limits, and the community needs to recognize
this.” Discuss with your peers what you think
Sydney’s and Australia’s population should be.
The average Australian household produces 15 tonnes of greenhouse emissions per year, but through measures such as switching to green power, recycling more, using public transport, installing a water saving showerhead and energy efficient devices, it is possible
for you to cut your household greenhouse emissions by at least 25 per cent.
Go for it !
When European settlers arrived to Australia, they knew nothing about the indigenous Australian plants. There was little dialogue with the aborigines. So they brought and grew the plants that they knew about from overseas, both for food, for flowers, and for other agricultural products.
Since then, the plants brought and cultivated here from overseas, by all cultures of migrants, have now substantially displaced local plants, and reduced the food supplies for many native animals. This is how some 30% of Australian mammal species have become extinct, and why only 5% of Australia's indigenous vegetation remains intact, after just 230 years…
Retaining our precious indigenous plants, is the key to retaining our indigenous animals, and bio-diversity. It is for these reasons, and the enthusiasm of our Tuition Class students, and YBS members, that the monastery joined up with Strathfield Council in their National Tree Day activity in July 2001.
Joint efforts with Strathfield Council, now provide properly-instructed, monthly, botany, bio-diversity, and bushcare activities for the monastery's Tuition Class students. Each student from Year 7 to Year 11 is expected to participate in at least one bushcare activity per year.
With many Sydney children now growing up confined in flats or units, these activities sometimes represent their first real exposure to gardening, nature, and
wichetty-grubs ! We can tell you, the students do appreciate worthwhile, teamwork activities outside the classroom like this. We would like to acknowledge their great interest, and help, in supporting this activity.
Students and YBS members have helped regenerate small pockets of remnant Strathfield
bushland, as part of Council's policy to try and create wildlife corridors within the municipality. They have already completed significant plantings at Mason Park Wetlands in North
Strathfield, Dean Reserve and Maria Reserve next to the Cooks River, and Airey Reserve in Homebush over the past
few years.
If you live in Sydney, we hope you will help sustain, and preserve, the botanical heritage for our younger generation. Why not design your gardens, using any of the 2,000 indigenous plants of Sydney ? Not only are Sydney plants beautiful, they require no
watering once established. Here is a list of indigenous vegetation
by Sydney suburb if you need it:
Sydney vegetation list by
suburb.xls (337 kb)
Animal and plant species all around the world are threatened by
modern man's activities. While we encourage Sydney students to look
after the plants of the Sydney botanical provenance, we hope
students of all other botanical provenances round the world will
look after their heritage.
This means that the students of Strathfield, Lidcombe, or Hornsby,
or indeed New Zealand, Indonesia, or any other area, each have a small,
but different part of the world's species to look after.
While we should accept that everything is subject to change, we
should not ignore, nor condone, the
killing of entire species of plants and animals. Nor should we
accept or encourage wanton environmental
destruction.
For the last five years, we have been testing our Year 8
students on their practical bio-diversity knowledge. Their botanical
education and preferences represent the future of
Sydney's environment and botanical profile. How would you fare with the test we give our
Year 8 students ?
2009
Year
8 Aussie Biodiversity Test and Results (273 kb)
2008
Year
8 Aussie Biodiversity Test and Results (321 kb)
2007
Year
8 Aussie Biodiversity Test and Results (148 kb)
2006
Year
8 Aussie Biodiversity Test and Results (243 kb)
2005
Year
8 Aussie Biodiversity Test and Results (60 kb)
2004
Year
8 Aussie Biodiversity Test and Results (78 kb)
2003
Year
8 Aussie Biodiversity Test and Results (114 kb)
2002
Year
8 Aussie Biodiversity Test and Results (100 kb)
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